


gone ahead

by keouil



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Hatake Kakashi-centric, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:41:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25936840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keouil/pseuds/keouil
Summary: kakashi moves through life in closed caskets and funeral homes.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Namikaze Minato, Hatake Kakashi/Nohara Rin, Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	gone ahead

**Author's Note:**

> “after you died i could not hold a funeral,  
> and so my life became a funeral.”  
> — human acts, han kang

the day before,

he was slightly disoriented.

what budding relationship he had managed to euphorically create in the heat of the moment with his, and this word still feels foreign on his lips, _friend_ was viciously nipped in the bud before it even had the chance to blossom into something greater neither of them would be able to fathom in the years to come.

perhaps what ate at him most was the almost incredulous favour of being asked, by his _grandmother_ nonetheless, to be one of the principal mourners for his wake. it was then he was once again hit by an unmoving force of unfathomable guilt because if a clanless and orphaned mut like him was nearly begged, _please i know my sweet boy looked up to you so so much_ , to officiate an uchiha funeral – then this friend really had nobody.

he leaves him his forehead protector.

* * *

the day of,

he makes it a point to be on time. 

as if this was an actual s-rank mission going into his ever-growing ledger, he breezes through the early onset of dawn like his very life depended on being there at the exact moment he was to be needed. because if there is _one thing left, one insignificant gesture_ he could offer her in the face of the immeasurable kindness she graced him over the years, it was that he would give all he was physically able to in his entirety for her without a moment to spare.

because a second too late in warring times and kiri nukenin meant a life that could have been spared, a gaping hole in the chest easily healed, a broken smile whispering grateful lies hushed, and most importantly, his heart pinches at this – a dying man’s last wish honoured.

he leaves her a flower.

* * *

the day after,

he mourned for two. 

three, if you count the recently orphaned newborn they left behind bound to end up a shunned punching bag as atonement for last week’s blood carnage.

he was not asked to be an important figure in the ceremony, nor did he feel the need to be first in attendance. this time he was given the luxury to take it in stride and react like most the common folk who did not know of their leader’s last monumental and selfless sacrifice. by the time he was clued in on what had happened, there were still people to evacuate and if his sensei taught him anything it was that _the village always came first._

and so he waits until the very last second of the very last day to visit their joint tombstones because as inseparable as they were living they would be even more entangled in death, this much he took comfort in.

he leaves them with everything he has left.

* * *

in that space between himself and the departed, he is vulnerable. 

because kakashi is _fucking sixteen_ and already mourning the deaths of a hundred of his past lifetimes combined and he feels himself slipping every single day and beginning to see reason with his father’s last act in his selfish one-man show and thinks _it would be so easy_ , a simple slit on the wrist with the token katana his old man left him or _even better_ the engraved kunai sensei gifted him on his jounin inauguration and he hates _every fucking one of them_ not for going before him, no never that, but leaving _h_ _im_ –

in that memorial stone,

he leaves with one eye, a hand in his chest, and a note

_thank you for not making it on time._


End file.
